Table of contents for July 2018 in SFX

I can still remember the first time I saw Jurassic Park. It was my last day of middle school, and me and a couple of mates went on an expedition to Stoke-on-Trent (okay, our parents drove us) to see one of the most hotly anticipated films of our young lives. Even in those pre-internet days, the hype was so big we had to see it the day it came out – and like everybody else, we were totally blown away by the groundbreaking sight of T-rexes and Velociraptors coming alive on screen. Photo-real CG creatures may be commonplace these days, but there’s still few things in movies as fun as watching dinosaurs run amok. And after the massive success of Jurassic World, another trip to Isla Nublar was inevitable, so…

FEEDING FRENZY → Tyrone’s comic book counterpart experienced an insatiable hunger that only Tandy’s light could quench. That element won’t manifest in the series – at least, not yet. “I wanted to stay away from that in the first season,” notes Pokaski. “The idea that Tyrone had this hunger, this feeling that only the light can cure, felt like it wasn’t the right thing when introducing them. If we are lucky enough, we are going to explore their need for each other in season two. We are just going to keep it balanced.” CORPORATE GREED → The Roxxon Corporation has already reared its ugly head in Iron Man, Agent Carter and Netflix’s Daredevil. Now, it serves as Cloak & Dagger’s Big Bad. “It was important for me to make sure…

IT’S ONE SERIOUSLY COMPLEX MOVIE 1 Stone circles. Weird skull-shaped rocks. Doomsday cults. The Endless is a film crammed with brilliantly weird elements. “We want people to be frightened by the ideas in the film,” nods director Aaron Moorhead, who co-directed with his buddy Justin Benson. The pair also star as friends who return to a remote cult on a mission that, inevitably, goes wrong, with time itself becoming an enemy. The film’s plot slowly slots together to form a sprawling, super-smart puzzle. “It’s like a Rubik’s cube or a Russian doll where there are a lot of pieces inside other pieces; when you turn a piece it starts to form a pattern,” says Moorhead. LOVECRAFT WAS (SORT OF) AN INFLUENCE 2 “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is…

Ever since Neil Armstrong first made his giant leap for mankind in 1969, the space race has been played out on television. Now in Ascension – the first volume in the Phobos series – Victor Dixen is taking it to the next, logical level, pairing up the 12 astronauts for a mission to Mars through a reality TV programme. “When we go to Mars, I’m convinced it will be the biggest show of its time,” the author tells Red Alert. “A speed-dating game could well be the shape it could take. After all, to create a human colony on a new world, you need couples first, and how unique a show would it be, to see astronauts fall in love in space!” Selecting the nationalities of the dozen young adult…

After stamping his mark on Doctor Who during his successful stint as script editor on the final three seasons of the Time Lord’s original run, Andrew Cartmel is returning to Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor with a new Titan Comics mini-series. “When I was working on the TV show, I deliberately did a reset of the Doctor, restoring the character’s stature, mystery and power,” recalls Cartmel. “He once again became the slightly scary alien enigma he should always have been. At the same time Ace – and her down-to-earth character and backstory – kept the Doctor grounded, and gave the viewers an entry point and a safe place to put their sympathies.” Alongside Sophie Aldred’s long-standing companion, the three-parter also features several characters (including Professor Rachel Jensen and Group Captain Gilmore)…

Essentially a break-up record, Charlotte Hatherley’s new solo outing is a science fiction inspired concept album. Taking the lead from her soundtrack for FX artist Gavin Rothery’s short film “The Last Man”, the former Ash guitarist casts herself as the enigmatic Traveller, who journeys through an alien planet searching for the titular True Love. “The songs are about something that happened to me, but it’s not that interesting listening to someone singing about heartbreak and sadness,” Hatherley tells Red Alert. “So I thought maybe I can take that and put it into this otherworldly situation, and it also helped me distance myself from it.” With Rothery also directing the video, Hatherley based Traveller’s distinctive look on the striking spacesuit she wore in the video for recent single “A Sign”. “It…

THE IT CROWD! IT: CHAPTER TWO The Losers Club is assembling for the second half of IT, set to focus on the adult incarnations of the clown-scarred kids we met in Chapter One. James McAvoy is said to be the frontrunner for the role of Bill Denbrough, played by Jaeden Lieberher in the 2017 movie. Saturday Night Live vet and Barry star Bill Hader is reportedly the studio’s pick for Richie Tozier, replacing magnificently named Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard, who seriously needs a younger brother named Finn Wolfhard: Wolf Harder. They’ll join Jessica Chastain as Beverly Marsh, played in the first film by Sophia Lillis. Filming begins in July for a September 2019 release and director Andy Muschietti tells Fandango, “It’s going to be scarier and more intense, so…

“FOOD IN FANTASY CAN HELP ESTABLISH PLACE AND CULTURE” In a writer’s ongoing quest to create relatable characters, there is always one element that an author can count on, one element that all readers, and (mostly) all characters will share. Everyone has to eat. The author, then, is tasked with filling nigh innumerable hungry mouths in this constant need to feed his or her characters. How do writers deal with this? Gloss over the dining, or embrace it? Let’s talk about “trail food”, so prevalent in classic fantasy. On the hero’s journey through perilous lands, the group seems to survive on nuts, dried meat, berries, and a skin of water. If you’re lucky enough to have a hunter in your company, you might be treated to an occasional deer or…

▸ Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park ends very differently to the movie. Instead of flying off into the sunset, Dr Grant and co are whisked off to a Costa Rican detention centre as the island and all its dinosaur inhabitants are napalmed into oblivion. Oh, and Dr Ian Malcolm? He’s dead. The explosive finale and Dr. Malcolm’s death weren’t the only things Spielberg left out. Filmmakers have cherry picked a lot from Crichton’s novels but many of the weirder ideas never even made the cutting room floor. Hammond’s company InGen was barely mentioned in the original film and its involvement in The Lost World was drastically changed for Spielberg’s film. In the novels, InGen’s main rival is Biosyn, a Weyland-Yutani type company that wants to use dinosaurs for genetic experiments among…

Best of anthology TV Black Mirror “San Junipero” Arare upbeat episode from Charlie Brooker, as two women meet in a virtual reality simulation designed to look like a seaside town, and begin a romance that ebbs into the real world. The Twilight Zone “Time Enough At Last” Burgess Meredith stars as an unassuming bookworm who becomes the last man alive after a nuclear bomb goes off in this series-defining tale from series creator Rod Serling. Inside No 9 “The 12 Days Of Christine” Less comedic than most of its Inside No 9 stablemates, this Sheridan Smith-starring mini-drama is a powerfully poignant fantasy, with a killer twist. Hammer House Of Horror “The House That Bled To Death” Hammer made this blood-drenched episode about a family who move into a house that…

“THERE’S A DEEP HUMAN NEED TO MAKE THINGS BETTER” WHAT MAKES CLAIRE NORTH’S novels so distinctive? It’s a question that, among other people, puzzles her publisher and North herself. “It’s one of those awkward things where we know what it’s not,” she sighs, “but what it is is high concept, yet I don’t really know what that means either.” Luckily, when North sits down to write, she knows exactly what’s required, as new novel 84K again proves. Her novels are built on strong central ideas that anyone can grasp. Having previously offered us, for instance, a character reborn remembering his previous iterations in The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August and a body-hopping killer in Touch, this time around her novel rests on a deceptively simple question: “What if everything…

“Animators are known for doing a little bit of ‘wink, wink, nod, nod’,” smiles Fleischer. It’s true. Jokes hidden in between frames went by far too fast for the naked eye to catch – but not fast enough for DVD freeze frame to capture. “The movie’s filled with those things,” confirms Wolf. “The most infamous was where Vinny the Cab hits a telephone pole and sends Jessica and Eddie flying. As Jessica’s upside down, you see that she has no underwear on. It wasn’t salacious but that gave the movie a whole new dimension so people started watching it again in another way,” he adds. “Disney immediately removed them,” reveals Fleisher, “except there are lots of things that are still hidden…”…

When did you begin planning this story? CM Thanos has been popping up in various movies, but I think in some ways it solidified when it became clear that the two movies would fall around the 10th anniversary of the studio. It seemed like a time for culmination. Do you have a favourite MCU character to write? SM For this project it was Thanos. He’d had, by design, just a few small scenes. The idea that he could be the main character and drive the action was juicy for us. Did you take inspiration from Jim Starlin’s comics? SM Oh yes. As much as we could – it gets trippy – but his characterisation and the reach of it we went for as much as we could. CM He never…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx There’s a lovely, remarkably potent idea at the heart of Black Panther, and it’s this: just because you can’t see Wakanda, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. That notion is so powerfully evocative it helped turn Marvel’s 18th film into a phenomenon, one which went on to garner a record-smashing $1.3 billion. But what makes the film so compelling is that it gave audiences – and specifically black audiences – something usually reserved for stories set in a galaxy far, far away: hope. Our eyes have now been opened up to the wonders of Wakanda, and its impact on contemporary culture can’t be ignored. Here’s a multi-million-dollar blockbuster featuring a predominantly black cast who talk about black issues and celebrate their blackness…

You may wonder why production was delayed on Maze Runner: The Death Cure after star Dylan O’Brien was involved in a stunt accident on-set, when it looks for all the world like it’s been assembled from deleted scenes from the previous two films. The original Maze Runner was a fun, smart twist on the then-en vogue YA dystopia genre, but the sequels are little more than bargainbasement Hunger Games with all the politics sucked out. The Death Cure is a plotless series of well-crafted but conceptually undistinguished action set-pieces strung together by youthful actors frowning a lot. They’re attempting to rescue a trusted colleague from the evil WCKD organisation, which is experimenting on teens immune to a virus that’s ravaged the world. Utterly bereft of anything approaching original ideas, it’s…

BLU-RAY DEBUT Jennifer Jason Leigh is a VR games designer on the lam from assassins in David Cronenberg’s last truly Cronenbergian movie. With its new bodily orifices, slippery reality/fantasy boundaries and febrile tone, it feels like both a Greatest Hits and a slatecleaning exercise by a man who, judging by the self-deprecatory metacommentary, had tired of his own schtick. An enjoyably lysergic ride, but a hollow one. Extras Three commentaries (two new); interviews (one new); old featurettes.…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx The first Insidious movie was original and clever. The fourth is neither of those things. But within its own world, Insidious: The Last Key just about works. Its biggest bonus is Lin Shaye as psychic Elise. A sequel to Insidious: Chapter 3, which was itself a prequel to the original, Last Key takes place in 2010, leading right up to the events of the first film. This is Elise’s origin story. Events from her childhood are dragged into the spotlight when she’s summoned back to exorcise the home she left aged 16, which is riddled with demons. We say spotlight, but Last Key is a dark movie, sacrificing several scares because it’s simply too gloomy to see what’s going on. Still, there…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx It may be shrouded in death, but Pixar’s latest outing is devoted to family and the life-affirming joy of song. Miguel is a dreamy young boy from a hard-working family who’s forbidden to play music. One night he steals the guitar of his idol Ernesto de la Cruz and winds up in the Land of the Dead. The film is besotted with Mexican culture, presenting it as a candy land of painted skulls, tamales and Aztec blossoms, where the dead are treated like royalty. Thankfully this feels celebratory rather than demeaning. The Land of the Dead looks even more breathtaking, a glistening hi-tech wonder that’s part amusement park, part futuristic metropolis. Beneath the visual splendour is an eternally important message for children:…

In 1914, HG Wells argued that the conflict we now call World War I would be “the war that will end war”, because (to cut a 99-page pamphlet short) it’d make everyone realise that fighting was more trouble than it was worth. Not, of course, one of Mr Wells’s more successful predictions. But the idea of WWI as a major historical turning point – what if it had gone differently? – has been imaginative catnip for writers ever since. Turkish journalist Özgür Mumcu’s debut novel takes this idea and turns it into a darkly funny absurdist romp. Feckless scion of wealth Celal Bey isn’t an obvious candidate to change the world; he spends his days writing bestselling erotic fiction and occasionally getting challenged to duels. All this changes when he…

There are some big ideas in Buying Time: in the near future, England embraces fascism, while an independent Scotland becomes a safe haven for refugees fleeing anti-LGBT legislation in both England and the US. Yet at heart EM Brown’s story boils down to something much more personal. The narrative is told from two viewpoints. The primary protagonist is Ed Richie, a bestselling author who, for reasons he cannot comprehend, finds his consciousness erratically jumping back in time, transposing his sixty-something mind into his younger selves. Then there’s Ella Shaw, a journalist in 2030 researching Richie’s disappearance five years ago. Brown can be guilty of doing a Stephen King, making his leading man a writer who happens to be smart, charming and attractive, though Richie frequently comes across as smug and vain.…

Have you ever had an epiphany? Have you ever woken up with a new attitude and turned your life around? Nah, us neither. But Alex Moore has: an out-of-nowhere awakening so profound that she went from being a moping, dreary nobody to the highflying creator of a tech start-up so successful, buzz-wordy and game-changing that nobody really understands what it does. Something’s wrong, though: she’s having dizzy spells, and when she looks back on her former life she feels no emotions at all. What the hell happened to her? The answer takes Alex to a remote Scottish island on a journey of discovery, with the plot riffing on everything from Richard Curtis romcoms to Pixar’s Inside Out. It’s deeply delicious: a solid, fascinating mystery that plays out slowly and satisfyingly.…

When the first chapter of a novel features the protagonist feeling like she’s in “a corny novel by some middle-aged Oxbridge guy”, alarm bells start to ring. The context is that young volcanologist Surtsey (she’s named after an Icelandic island) is having an affair with her married, middle-aged boss. Having your characters comment on the cliché does not excuse the cliché. A page later the middle-aged boss turns up murdered and Surtsey, hoping to keep their affair a secret, doesn’t report it. It’s a dynamic start which then goes absolutely nowhere. The book has all the trappings of a thriller, yet it feels very static because Surtsey is so passive – apart from lying to the police she does barely anything to affect the plot. Much of the tension centres…

How would you fancy a foot-tall human robbed of their ability to talk as a pet? You might think that’s a little creepy. You might even be looking up the number for Amnesty International. But in the near-future world of The Biggerers, owning Mini-Mes is all the rage. Because, apparently, simply marketing them as “not humans” is enough. And guess what? The “littlers” are about to fight back. While the book valiantly uses this scenario in an attempt to explore themes of cloning, self-determination and that old sci-fi chestnut “what it is to be human”, it’s actually at its most entertaining as a satire on pet ownership and the paranoia bred by a long-term relationship gone sour. It’s written in a bizarre, self-consciously literary style, with a fractured timeline, constant…

ISSUES 1-3 Showing as little respect for subtlety and decorum as it does for punctuation, anarchic fantasy Punks Not Dead arrives on the scene as a colourfully bonkers satire that’s out to have some serious fun. One of the launch titles from IDW’s new imprint Black Crown, it’s the story of Fergie, a teenager for whom life at school is a rollercoaster of bad luck – until a spectral encounter at Heathrow Airport sees him end up with the ghost of deceased punk rocker Sid Vicious as a permanent companion. While Sid’s presence leads to an unexpected turn in Fergie’s fortunes, this new friendship has also done something very odd to the nature of reality itself, and these first three issues make it clear that novelist-turned-comics-scripter David Barnett has some…

ISSUES 1-3 Like a cross between Chris Foss and Moebius, Esad Ribic is one of comics’ most accomplished science fiction artists. So it’s refreshing to see the Croatian stepping out of his usual Marvel comfort zone and embarking upon his own project. It’s just a shame that Ivan Brandon’s story is so unremarkable. Resembling Rogue Trooper combined with Starship Troopers by way of The Hunger Games, VS’s televised future war scenario would be right at home in the pages of 2000 AD. Brandon does add a few interesting quirks, such as the participants being penalised if they don’t stop for commercial breaks, as well as the use of technical fouls and previously recorded flashbacks. But main character Industrial Guardsman Satta Flynn is not much more than a cypher, and three…

AUDIO DRAMA Torchwood was a show with several distinct phases, from the Cardiff-based heroics of the first two seasons (a kind of incompetent Welsh X-Files) to the cross-Atlantic weirdness of Miracle Day. Despite the highs and lows of the last two seasons, it still feels like the “real” Torchwood team is the one seen from the beginning: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Owen and Tosh. Believe brings all five together again for the first time in a decade, and does a great job of capturing that early seasons feel. Torchwood is investigating the “Church of the Outsiders”, an alien-focused cult that, er, in no way bears a strong resemblance to a certain litigious real-world religion. As the team separates to infiltrate the church, each character faces problems of their own. And Jack…

VIDEOGAME There comes a time in everyone’s life when the decision of whether to use children to mine coal has to be made, and in Frostpunk it comes pretty darn early. In an alt-history steampunk 1880s after climate catastrophe has frozen the Earth, coal is in short supply and very much needed for survival. Of course we sign the law allowing it. We’re Victorians from London, after all… The work of This War Of Mine veterans 11 Bit Studios, Frostpunk has some similar themes to that earlier game, but instead of overseeing four survivors in a bunker you’re made captain of the last city on Earth. When the game begins you’ve got just one generator and 40 homeless citizens to provide for. It’s a tricky game to pigeonhole. It’s a…

FLYING GOLDEN SNITCH This replica of the Quidditch ball flies with flapping wings, not a propeller! What sorcery is this?! A heliball snitch which uses sensors to fly away when it detects your hand nearby is also on its way. CLAWZPLAY PLUSHES This month’s award for Most Bonkers Concept goes to this range of four Jurassic Park toys. Standing 8” high, they gene-splice human characters with dinosaurs, to create a Raptor Alan Grant, a T-rex Ian Malcolm, and so on. Madness! DISCOVERY PHASER Blast those sneaky House of T’Kuvma infiltrators with this replica of the weapon from the new Star Trek show. Twist the rotating barrel to set it to stun or kill; a red or blue LED indicates which mode is selected.…

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES → I’m optimistic that the Bill & Ted threequel will be excellent rather than bogus. → Seventy more episodes of Rick And Morty? As long as Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon keep having killer ideas, I can live with that. RANTS → The Expanse has been dropped by Syfy? Disappointed! IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES → Had a great day in Liverpool on the set of the BBC’s new period adaptation of The War Of The Worlds – complete with Martian pod! → Really liked the BBC’s The City & The City. → Groovy LP of the month: Trunk Records’ Spider-Jazz, a compilation of library tracks used in a certain 1967 animated series… JONATHAN COATES ART EDITOR RAVES → Not quite feeling season two of Westworld…

It’s the beginning of the end for 12 Monkeys as the trippy, twisty time-travel saga returns for its fourth and final season – and the stakes have never been higher as the Witness and the Army of the 12 Monkeys inch closer to destroying the world. When viewers last saw our heroes, Cassie and Cole had discovered their adult son, Athan, wasn’t the Witness after all, as that mantle belonged to Olivia. Athan ultimately sacrificed himself to allow his parents to escape. Emotionally beaten and physically battered – not to mention with their time machine on the fritz – it seems Team Splinter has lost any hope of winning their war. “Season four picks up the exact moment we left off,” showrunner Terry Matalas (who, appropriately, owns his own original Back…

Clad in a leopard-print suit, Casper is flamboyant and chatty when he meets Red Alert at the For Love Of Sci-Fi con – worlds away from the surly Johnny Rico he played in Starship Troopers (1997). More recently, Van Dien has starred in All About The Money (2017), The Last Bid (2016) and Alan Tudyk’s sitcom Con Man. Would you like to play Johnny on screen again? → Absolutely! I loved being Johnny Rico, it‘s been the role of a lifetime for me. No matter where I go somebody will yell at me “Johnny Rico!” or “You know what to do!” or, “What are you doing here, Rico?” and I’ll be like, “Just getting toilet paper, it happens!” So not killing bugs? → I try to capture bugs now not…

With his mutant ability to clone himself every time something hits him, Jamie Madrox resembles a one-man super-team. Now Multiple Man is set to appear in his first mini-series for almost two decades, courtesy of writer Matthew Rosenberg and artist Andy MacDonald, “I described it once as a team book about the five best superheroes of all time – Madrox, Madrox, Madrox, Madrox and Madrox,” laughs Rosenberg. “But beyond stealing jokes from Dave Chappelle, one of the things that got me excited about doing the book was how few other characters I needed. There are some characters including a whole bunch of X-Men, but this is a single character showcase more than most other books that I can think of.” While the Terrigen Mist apparently killed Madrox and his numerous…

Tell us about your protagonists. → Ory and Max are husband and wife, hiding from the strange phenomenon causing people’s shadows to disappear – until Max’s shadow disappears too, and they’re forced to confront the curse head-on. Then there’s Naz, a woman whose fate becomes entangled with theirs, and “the amnesiac”, the most mysterious of them all… What sparked the novel? → I knew I wanted to write about shadows, but it wasn’t until I stumbled across “Zero Shadow Day” – a real day in India when every year, everyone’s shadows disappear for just a few minutes – that the seed was sown. You studied International Studies and Diplomacy – did that feed into it? → A little bit! In the early panic, visas get revoked, borders close to contain…

Described as “Starship Troopers meets Apocalypse Now”, Yoon Ha Lee’s Machinery Of Empire trilogy centres around the rivalry between far-future soldier Captain Kel Cheris and traitorous General Shuos Jedao. But as the author reveals, the dynamic between the deadly foes has shifted radically between 2016’s opening volume Ninefox Gambit and final instalment Revenant Gun. “In the first book, they’re adversaries in a prickly mentor/mentee relationship, because Cheris needs Jedao’s experience but has to be wary of the fact that he’s a mass murderer who might betray her,” Lee tells Red Alert. “In book two, Raven Stratagem, Cheris and Jedao take the role of antagonist, as they race to start their revolution. In Revenant Gun, Jedao is under the control of the immortal Kujen, and Cheris is out to assassinate them…

The forest is a traditional habitat for the forces of darkness in fantasy. Luckily the populace of Peter Newman’s new novel have protection in the form of the Deathless: immortal warriors in suits of winged crystal armour. Newman describes his novel as mixing high fantasy elements with folklore. “I was inspired by Grimms’ Fairy Tales and all those old ideas of ‘don’t leave the path’; ‘be back indoors by nightfall’ – and added some twisted demons.” Just because they are immortal, it doesn’t mean the Deathless are invincible, though – or without more human enemies. While the evil in the Wild is getting, er, wilder, someone attempts to destroy House Sapphire, setting in motion a terrible chain of events. “The inciting incident is that someone tries to assassinate one of…

SFX HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN! #LOST IN SPACE Andrew Gorton, Facebook Solid SF fare – though the distant planet looks like Canada. I found myself half-hoping they had crashed in Canada, and the Robot was some kind of intergalactic Jeremy Beadle! Jason Aquino, GamesRadar+ It all looks great – not cheesy or cheap. The Robot looks awesome, and they really put a lot of work into those sets – so much detail. Ouinston, Twitter It gradually turned into a rollercoaster of catastrophic mishaps that somehow everyone survived unscathed. By the end the Robinsons had survived more mortal dangers than in three seasons back in the ’60s. Simply ridiculous! John Hobart, Facebook I’d like to see an entire episode where nothing goes wrong for the poor Robinsons. It probably doesn’t make for…

Some may find the language of this book wearing. Bass was a doctor who liked medical terminology, which starts immediately with a character being “edentulous” rather than toothless. This is something I usually find irritating because it’s a sign of a writer trying to be a writer rather than tell a story. Another problem here is that the book appears to have been stitched together out of various pieces and meanders at the beginning. So why did I enjoy it and why is it often at the forefront of my mind when I’m asked to recommend books? SF is mostly utopian in outlook. Hell, yes, we might end up nose to nose with hostile aliens, or see nasty totalitarian societies, but we’ve usually moved beyond Earth where the options for…

“What’s so great about discovery? It’s a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.” Dr Malcolm doesn’t mince his words when it comes to the recreation of dinosaurs from fossils. “If The Pirates Of The Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists!” Is this Malcolm’s pitch for a Pirates spin-off? “I’m simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.” Need something to happen in your film but don’t have time to explain it? Dialogue, uh… finds a way. “I hate being right all the time.” A new spin on “I told you so”… “You know, at times like this one feels perhaps extinct animals should be left extinct.” Who can argue with that? “Your scientists were so…

In 1978 Devil Dinosaur roared out of the vibrant imagination of Jack Kirby, co-founder of the Marvel Universe. One of the quirkiest creations in Marvel’s decade of peak quirk (hello, Howard the Duck…), Devil was a mutant T-rex, empowered with human intelligence by exposure to the same flames that turned his hide bright red. Inseparable from hairy Neanderthal sidekick Moon Boy, he roamed a prehistoric realm later revealed to be Earth-74811 AKA Dinosaur World. A cult fave among Kirbyphiles, Devil’s now teamed with Moon Girl in Marvel continuity. We want him on the big screen and we want it now. Phase Four, Marvel? How about Phase ROAR!…

Where do we find Luke Cage at the beginning of this season? ✸ He’s not running from the law anymore. Everybody knows who he is and so we find Luke in a different place mentally. He’s a little more confident, a little more… I would dare say cocky in some places! He can walk for 30, 40 blocks, and everybody’s like, “Hey Luke!” He’s a celebrity. He’s revelling in that a bit. Will there be a lot of action this year? ✸ We will definitely see some cool stunts this season – with Matt Mullins, who did the stunt choreography for The Defenders. He’s really brought his A game. In the first season I told the showrunner, “We need a little more action.” Now we’ve got more action than I…

Tell us a bit about this new character you’re playing. ✸ I play John McIver, Bushmaster. He’s of Caribbean descent. A Jamaican bad boy. Super-intelligent. Really good with his hands and feet, and his head. He’s set on vengeance. He’s got some things that went awry in his youth that he has kept close to his heart, and that he has every intention of seeing through. You can call him a villain, he has some inclinations towards behaviours that we would say were rough; but his overall mission is noble. How does this story compare to the Iron Fist comics where Bushmaster originated? ✸ In the comics, he becomes the head of the Maggia, the European mafia, before he comes to America. We’re not going that route. At least not…

Milly Shapiro plays Charlie What is it about Hereditary that makes it such a uniquely scary film? ▸ I think what makes it really unique is it doesn’t focus on horror, it focuses on the relationships and the family drama. Because while scary things do happen, it’s not the only thing you’re watching the film for. If all the horror was taken out, it’d still be a great movie. Charlie comes across as pretty disturbed. How would you describe her as a character? ▸I would describe her as … inocent and otherworldly. Because she doesn’t really understand why the world works like it does and she doesn’t really connect with other people. She’s very distant. How did you approach that “innocence” in scenes where, for example, she’s cutting a bird’s head off?…

THE JAGUAR While on an archaeological dig in Peru, zoologist Ralph Hardy discovers a mystical energy belt with a jaguar on the buckle, inside a ruined Incan temple. Wearing it imbues him with not only feline abilities but the powers of other animals. WHITE TIGER Marvel’s first Latino superhero debuted in Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu in 1975. When Hector Ayala dons three mystical tiger amulets, he acquires the abilities of a master martial artist. THE LEOPARD FROM LIME STREET In this Buster strip, a radioactive leopard’s scratch gives young photographer Billy Farmer incredible strength and reflexes. As well as fighting crime, Billy supports his aunt by selling photos of himself to the local paper. Remind you of anyone? SHE WOMAN CAT TYPE THING One quarter of Harry Enfield super-team…

This quirky, absurdist fable feels like something Charlie Kaufman might have cooked up in the noughties. Fifteen years after a Swedish scientist came up with a radical solution to the problems of human overpopulation, Paul (Matt Damon) and his wife (Kristen Wiig) are just two of thousands electing to be shrunk down to five inches tall, so they can live the lifestyle of a multi-millionaire in a “small community”. Paul soon comes to regret it… Movie miniaturisation usually pitches people into peril, but Paul, secure in the film’s miniature spin on a gated community, doesn’t end up fighting spiders or terrorised by a giant cat. This leaves plenty of space to discuss the wider implications of the high-concept – like regressive governments forcibly shrinking dissidents – so it’s surprising these…

Ever woken up on a bench and wondered how you got there? Covek finds himself repeatedly doing just that in this paranoid Serbian thriller. Every time he wakes, mask-wearing men in black show up and execute him – cue the loop starting over until Covek can work out how to stop it. Director Filip Kovacevi’s debut owes a lot to films like Source Code and The Matrix, but he makes good use of limited resources to turn in a short and stylish flick that holds the attention well enough. Extras Trailer.…

Originally aired on Channel 4 in 2000, Beeban Kidron’s CINDERELLA (out now, DVD) is a faintly gothic retelling of the fairy tale, starring Kathleen Turner as a fashion-obsessed wicked stepmother who marries Cinders’s father for his wealth. With elements of Angela Carter, the most striking scenes see Cinderella mooning around clifftops like a Brontë heroine, meeting a reclusive mermaid, and being invited into the bedchambers of her strangely seductive, chain-smoking stepsisters. A high-school misfit gets a magical app that makes everything he types into its status box come true in teen comedy STATUS UPDATE (4 June, DVD) – think Mean Girls meets Wishmaster. We said: “Predictable? Sure, but it’s also incredibly charming. While its naivety can sometimes feel dated, its non-stop energy and smart dialogue make it irresistible.” Previously available…

Children’s author Tyler Whitesides makes the jump to writing for adults with this hugely ambitious epic fantasy. His hero, Ardor Benn, is a charming con artist hired to pull off the heist of a lifetime by stealing the King’s regalia. The fact that Ardor’s client is an elderly priest more interested in doctrine than money hints at the motive behind the assignment. The first act is a high-spirited caper as Ardor and his team infiltrate the royal court. The tone turns darker and more violent in the second act as they head to an island where dragons roost. The world-building is detailed without becoming burdensome as Whitesides imagines an economy built around Grit – refined dragon excrement that possesses a range of fantastic properties, from Drift Grit that nullifies gravity…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx SEVENTH DECIMATE (, 14 June, Gollancz), the first in Stephen Donaldson’s new series, The Great God’s War, centres on a generations-long conflict in which sorcerers use six types of destructive magic – the Decimates. When those on one side mysteriously lose their power, a Prince heads off in search of a mythical book which could turn the tide… We said: “With its clarity, brevity and timelessness, Seventh Decimate bears a resemblance to Sir Gawain And The Green Knight.” Natasha Pulley’s THE BEDLAM STACKS (, 14 June, Bloomsbury) follows 19th century horticulturalist Merrick Tremayne. Sent to an uncharted part of Peru to harvest seedlings, he encounters Incan myths come to life, wood with extraordinary properties, and exploding ducks. We said: “Pulley’s prose is…

The barriers between sci-fi and literary fiction are getting blurrier by the day, and the latest book to bridge the divide is an ambitious blend of hard SF and literary thriller. What’s most surprising about Connect is how much of a science fiction novel it is, tackling big ideas about technology and transhumanism while also trying to be an experimental and adventurous piece of storytelling. Set in an eminently believable near-future of advanced drone warfare and self-driving cars, it follows biotech scientist Naomi Ching as she makes a discovery that could transform the world. The US intelligence service quashes her research before she can make it public, but then her awkward, VR-dependant teenage son Colt uses her discovery on himself, with dangerous consequences. Heavily influenced by William Gibson and Philip…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx STAR WARS BLOCK •Subtitle: Over 100 Words Every Fan Should Know. •Pick this up if you want your ankle-biters to be able to identify all the denizens of the Mos Eisley Cantina. •Features adorable art depicting Star Wars characters from the prequels through to Episode VII, with diecuts on every spread. •It glosses over some of the saga’s important points, however, leaving out the battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan in Revenge Of The Sith. •We love the colourful rendition of Luke looking longingly at the twin suns of Tatooine. •Another highlight is a spread showing the Battle of Endor, proving that Ewoks can get more adorable. •We particularly liked the pull-down flap of the Rancor pit (below)!…

As ever, there’s a teetering pile of tomes that we couldn’t quite fit in. Giles Christian, best known for Viking trilogy Raven, has dipped his toe into Arthurian legend with LANCELOT (31 May, Bantam Press). Inspired by the death of Christian’s father, it is, he says, “less a story of heroic deeds and familiar tropes, and more a tale of love and loss, of all that might have been”. First published stateside last year, Louisa Morgan’s debut A SECRET HISTORY OF WITCHES (out now, Orbit) is a historical family saga with a twist, following five generations of magically gifted mothers and daughters. And Lavie Tidhar’s latest is quite a departure for the author of award-winning novels like Osama and Central Station. Aimed at readers aged nine and up and described…

COLLECTION Tharg’s Future Shocks were a memorable part of primal 2000 AD: short, sharp, twist-loaded tales that specialised in bad choices, bleak pay-offs and malign but ironically appropriate fates. An edgier, punkier district of The Twilight Zone, the bad streets where even Rod Serling wouldn’t walk after dark. Selected stories have been collected before; now these bite-sized bursts of Thrill Power are getting the completist treatment (this volume goes up to July 1981). Taken together it’s a breathless read, brimming with all the energy and spiky humour that filled the weekly’s early years. It’s all here, from the true fate of Neil Armstrong to an eerily prescient tale about self-driving cars (“We shall rid the tarmac of humans!” – take note, Google). There’s a deliciously apocalyptic streak here – things rarely…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx VIDEOGAME After exhausting (and garrotting) Ancient Greece, Sony’s Santa Monica Studio has wisely turned to Norse mythology to re-energise the iconic God Of War series. The new game brings the series’ violent brand of muscular combat and epic set-piece spectacle to the Nine Realms, and there’s no question this is the freshest entry in the series since surly Spartan Kratos’s Ares-annihilating debut in 2005. The switch to Nordic myth makes for a spectacular setting filled with astonishing sights. Over the course of 30 hours you witness some of the most impressive scenery on PS4. This is also a far more mature experience than past God Of War titles. In the years since it put out 2012’s God Of War: Ascension, it’s clear…

Software engineer Dominic Dulley looked to the stars for his first novel Shattermoon. The novel is set in the Ascendancy, a universe ruled by the rich, and follows Orry Kent, a Robin Hood-ish con artist raised by “master grifter” Eoin Kent. “Eoin’s trying to pass his skills on to his children, with mixed results,” Dulley tells Red Alert. “He’s also a single father still scarred by the loss of his wife. While he does his best to raise Orry and her brother, at times she thinks he pushes them too hard, and life aboard their ship can feel more like a crime school than a family. It’s only when Eoin isn’t there anymore that she realises how important he was to her.” When Orry winds up framed for murder, she…

ALMOST HUMAN “Essentially the synthetic part of Leo’s brain was destroyed [at the end of series two] and as a result, he’s been in a coma for a year – all the technology has been taken out of his body, so he’s fully human now. He’s got all these ancient, dormant feelings of what it was like to be a human before he was made into a cyborg, and he’s trying to make sense of that.” OBJECT OF REJECTION “From the beginning of the series he’s sort of rejected [by his Synth family]. It’s not that he doesn’t care, but it doesn’t affect him quite as much, and that’s happening quite naturally because before his body didn’t allow him to defend against emotional things, but humans are very good at…

The shortlist for the 2018 Clarke Award has been announced. It’s a list that encompasses classic SF tropes and lit-fic – often in the same book. Unusually, six writers who have never made the shortlist are in contention, which helps to explain award director Tom Hunter’s bright optimism. “If we look at the quality of the books being submitted along with the increasing quantity, I’m very confident for the future of the award,” he says. SEA OF RUST C Robert Cargill (Gollancz) The sea in question is a wasteland in a post-apocalyptic future. Yawn? No, because Cargill’s elegant twist is to craft a post-human Western featuring renegade robots as a way to explore questions around collectivism versus individualism. Prediction Dark (robot) horse DREAMS BEFORE THE START OF TIME Anne Charnock…

A FAMILY AFFAIR My favourite news story this month was one about a cinema in Australia which accidentally screened the trailer for Hereditary before a screening of Peter Rabbit. Apparently panicked parents were screaming at the projectionist to “make it stop!” while they lept to cover the eyes and ears of the traumatised offspring. Hilarious, and they couldn’t have chosen a better trailer to f-up with. Hereditary, out on 15 June (see our feature on p74 and review on p99) is extraordinary – it’s one of the best and purest horror movies I have seen in years, and I, as a fully grown and committed horror fan, found it extremely tough to watch. So bless those poor little mites having to watch a person set on fire, a child cutting…

Your name is Winter?” SFX almost feels guilty telling Jeff Goldblum that he’s misheard the publicist when she introduces us on the Universal lot in LA. “I thought she said Winter! How wonderful. Now I’m trying to work out what season I’d be named after…” We’re here to talk about Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, as the star returns to the dino franchise for the first time since 1997’s The Lost World, but any conversation with Goldblum is much more freeform than that – you don’t so much interview as experience him. And it’s fantastic. The star is funny, charming, idiosyncratic and brilliant to watch, those famous long fingers and mobile facial features every bit as expressive as they are on screen. “How long do we have? 20 minutes! We could…

What’s happened with Misty after The Defenders? ✸ We know that Misty lost her arm and – spoiler alert – she gets another one [laughs]. But this season you see her start out as an amputee, someone who went from being fully abled to differently abled. She’s not the Misty that we knew, who was this very confident, capable detective. When she gets the arm, you see a lot more action. It’s just really fun with her discovering all that she can do. Misty had a brief romance with Luke. Does that ever revive? ✸ Towards the end of season one, there was an understanding between them. Two people can be intimate without leaving a part of themselves with the other. For Misty, this season starts with her feeling like…

Pip Torrens is Herr Starr Jesse has a tendency to slip through Starr’s fingers a lot. Is that debilitating for a bad guy? ▸ No, Herr just keeps going forward like a shark. There are things you can see as an outsider, where you think he might be more effective if he did this, or if he did that. But you’re then asking the impossible of him, which is to have a bit more empathy, or any empathy at all, for the people he’s dealing with. The only character he really tiptoes around is his own boss, who is someone we get to meet later. The idea that Herr Starr answers to anybody is kind of shocking. Does this revelation reframe him in a surprising way? ▸ You do see…

One of Who Framed Roger Rabbit’s biggest hurdles was convincing Disney and Warner Bros to collaborate. A near impossible task – unless you’re Steven Spielberg. “Back in ’81 Roy Disney went to Warner Bros and said we want to use Bugs Bunny in a 10-second cameo,” recalls Wolf. “Warner Bros said there’s no way Bugs Bunny is ever going to be available for a Disney movie. Five years later, Spielberg makes an identical request and Warner Bros says of course – but what about Wile E Coyote, the Roadrunner, Yosemite Sam, Tweety Bird and Sylvester? The only restriction was that Bugs had to be on screen whenever Mickey was. They also had to have the same number of lines,” reveals Wolf. “You can go count them!”…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx SPOILER WARNING We called them comic book movies, but they never really were. Even at their finest and most faithful – Burton’s Batman, Donner’s Superman, Raimi’s Spider-Man – they were still movies cosplaying as comics, one entertainment medium dressing up as another. Avengers: Infinity War feels different. The payoff to Marvel’s decade-long masterplan, it’s the closest thing yet to a genuine comic book movie, on an almost molecular level. It plugs into a shared universe – one that’s been coalescing over 18 movies now – and packs the kind of connective tissue usually only found on comic store shelves. That flickering Marvel Studios ident, showcasing its roll call of heroes, has never felt so loaded, so electric. Where else would a simple…

Sometimes, very rarely, a film comes along that’s so tense, so oppressive, so affecting and so terrifying that watching it almost feels unbearable. That’s the case with Hereditary, which premiered at Sundance to rave reviews claiming the movie was too scary and this generation’s The Exorcist. They’re not wrong. It begins with a funeral. The mother of Toni Collette’s stressed miniature artist Annie has passed away, and only Annie’s odd, old-beyond-her years daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) seems upset. The death of this family matriarch unearths buried family secrets and suppressed emotions. And then something happens, and nothing will ever be okay again… Hereditary is a movie that is definitely best watched going in cold, so we won’t explain anything further about the plot. Instead, we’ll issue a warning: an event…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx The success of Hammer horror can be measured not only in box office receipts, but the way their gothic template was taken up across the world. This box set of films from Godzilla’s Toho Studios shows that Japanese filmmakers also fell under their thrall. A Western-style mansion is generally a key location, often with trappings like a cobwebbed suit of armour. Christopher Lee is clearly a model, with vamps making dramatic entrances at the top of staircases, and much atavistic snarling. There are also Renfield types, and bodies which melt after death… but there are innovations too: director Michio Yamamoto brought Dracula-style bloodsuckers into the modern day before Hammer’s Dracula AD 1972. The Vampire Doll (which doesn’t feature a vampire doll…) sees…

Weddings are stressful enough without the pressure of being possessed. Newly married Piotr finds this out the hard way in this brilliantly crafted Polish horror, which draws on the Jewish legend of the dybbuk. A brutal wedding reception possession scene is a highlight, but the real brilliance of Demon lies in its tragic rendering of Polish history. Mix in haunting music by Krzysztof Penderecki (The Exorcist/The Shining) and you’ve got an effective, and surprisingly original, modern folktale. Extras Stills; trailer.…

It’s unlikely Kevin Bacon regrets leaving Tremors movies behind – this unnecessary sixth instalment makes his EE ads look like high art. This time the Graboids are terrorising the Arctic, but there’s little new underground. Michael Gross’s survivalist schtick is tired, slow-mo is used to the point of parody and the dialogue is funny for the wrong reasons. “We got Ass-Blasters on campus," says it all. Extras Three featurettes.…

By the usual standards of Italian hack Joe D’Amato (aka Aristide Massaccesi) this first horror credit is classy – no rape with a bottle or foetus-eating! Blending period gothic and giallo mystery, it weaves a baffling, dream-like tale about Greta, a dead girl resurrected via an Incan medallion who’s then buried alive, only to return as a vengeful spirit. Sadly, the story’s so incompetently told that you may struggle to piece together much beyond these bare bones without googling. Berto Pisano’s score, with its music box melodies and swoony female wailing, is rather lovely, and the visuals frequently impress as, say, Scandinavian beauty Ewa Aulin glides about a mansion. Then Massaccesi will kill the mood with a cat ripping a bloke’s eyeballs out in close-up, and you’re reminded that this…

BLU-RAY DEBUT This cheesy horror could have centred on a giant cock. Instead, its titular beast is a load of balls. Based on a Clive Barker story, it merges folk horror and monster-on-the-rampage carnage as an ancient demon is freed from beneath a standing stone. Although Barker wrote the screenplay, it’s no surprise that the original tale – replete, as it is, with erections, excrement and ejaculate – has been toned down, though we’re still treated to the sight of a crazed verger kneeling for “baptism” in the piss of his new Lord; Ronan Wilmont’s bug-eyed performance is a delight. As Rawhead crashes through Irish caravan parks and farmhouses, dramatically sweeping things to the floor wherever he goes, it’s goofily OTT. Shame about the creature. Barker wanted something phallic. Instead,…

King Lear’s noted for being one of William Shakespeare’s gloomiest tragedies. This fantasy novel reworks the story, looking at the women around Lear, his wife and his daughters, and how his tragedy is also their tragedy. In many cases the names are only slightly changed, and if you know the original you’ll have an idea of where the narrative is heading. The characters perform, in the main, the same roles as in the play. Gaela and Regan, the story’s equivalents of Goneril and Regan, are strangely less real than in Shakespeare, their motives explored more but somehow harder to empathise with; Elia and Ban, the Cordelia and Edmund characters, are deeper, more sympathetic. You’ll find yourself feeling for Ban, in particular. However, the book is also more than just a…

Years after the Solmindre Empire killed the last dragon, the arcane is suppressed across the continent of Vinterkveld, even in the territories not yet brought under the control of the Emperor’s iron fist. Steiner and Kjellrunn live close to poverty with their father, fearing the moment when the Empire will conduct its yearly invigilation to discover any child bearing the Witchsign. Steiner is a straightforward young man, working for his father in the smithy. Kjell though, with her love of the old ways and crow feathers, is a different story, and the Empire doesn’t take kindly to different… While Witchsign isn’t always the most original story, it is a solid YA tale. Both main characters are truly likeable, and the secondary characters are as intriguing as they are occasionally detestable.…

Everyone loves a good con artist (well, except the people who get conned by them that is…), and the latest grifter to hit the SF genre is Orry Kent, heroine of space opera adventure Shattermoon. Orry is a teenager living in a spacebound future, doing her best to learn the art of the con from her criminal father, but when the attempted robbery of an aristocrat on the planet Tyr goes terribly wrong, she ends up accused of murder and on the run. With her father dead and her younger brother abducted, the only person who can help Orry is a burned-out spaceship captain. This first instalment in the Long Game series follows her adventures as she’s forced to use her con artist skills to prevent an interstellar war from…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx ISSUES 1-3 The idea that Batman might not be the healthiest of role models has been around for decades, but DC has found a new and illuminating way of exploring it. A prestige-format miniseries of four oversized issues, Batman: Creature Of The Night takes place in a world where Bruce Wayne is just a comic-book character. The story follows Bruce Wainwright, an only child of rich Boston parents who’s already fixated on the similarities to his fictional near-namesake when his mother and father are murdered in a home invasion. As Bruce grows up, his fixation with Batman becomes an obsession – but it also seems to have given him the ability to physically manifest a Batman-like creature, as a dark, shadowy vigilante…